Rank of Nation's Top High Schools

<p>yeah...our privates are $17k-$22k....but it's better than the alternative. Just last week a student was shot outside of the school that would be son's local public school if he wasn't in private. The shooting was so close to his private school (3 blocks away) that the private school has issued a new security policy to keep the kids off of the main street where all of the gang related violence is cropping up (as wel las direction for parents to take a different route to school so that we can avoid the police and media related traffic jams). This is the public that had to cut out the lunch period when I was growing up because the kids couldn't be trusted with forks and knives. </p>

<p>Our publics are baaaaaaad!!! Thanks to the Quakers, we have many excellent Friends schools in the area..... The Friends schools are a great alternative to the publics for us parents who REALLY don't want out kids attending the private school where little girls learn to ride their horses and compete for new Coach bags in the 2nd grade. ugh.</p>

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If you have windows that open, there is safe drinking water, there are seats, each student has a book, and there isn't human waste on the floor in the bathroom, be grateful. (most kids attend schools where they can't say that.)

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<p>Seattle doesn't have safe drinking water but that is easily remedied. They don't have enough desks or books at the school where my daughter attends, but the teachers are involved and haven't seen too many problems with the bathrooms.</p>

<p>I don't know if the windows open, most of the ones that i have seen in public school are painted shut.
I think the teachers and the students are greater consequence than the conditions, the superientendent likes to tell stories of his education in India under a tree!
I think having the students be ready to learn when they get to school, makes more of a difference than whether they can drink out of the tap or not.</p>

<p>Mini-</p>

<p>Have you seen the Pig Mobile? I think you can still sign up to drive it in your city for a month. My neighbor had it last Spring and it got LOTS of attention...</p>

<p><a href="http://www2.whoseflorida.com/newswire/display/459%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www2.whoseflorida.com/newswire/display/459&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>The pic is from Florida because I can't find a Philadelphia pic. I guess it didn't work in Florida, sadly!</p>

<p>"I think the teachers and the students are greater consequence than the conditions, the superientendent likes to tell stories of his education in India under a tree!"</p>

<p>Since I have a second home in rural South India, and am partially responsible currently for the education of 202 children, I can say without question that it is likely one can receive a superior education under a tree. </p>

<p>"I think having the students be ready to learn when they get to school, makes more of a difference than whether they can drink out of the tap or not."</p>

<p>It's all of a piece. I doubt it is ever anything the Andover GC thinks about.</p>

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<p>Hey, Mini, we should ALL have the opportunity, privilege and the CHIOCE to attend a school such as Andover, or one similar to it. Unfortunately, we all can't have this choice.</p>

<p>Emeraldkity, from the Pacific Northwest, said:</p>

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<p>I wholeheartedly agree with the above.</p>

<p>Click here: NR Back-to-School Issue September 15, 1997 </p>

<p><a href="http://www.nationalreview.com/15sept97/hu091597.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.nationalreview.com/15sept97/hu091597.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>AMERICA'S SCHOOLS
EDUCATION AND RACE
The performance of minority students in affluent areas refutes the prevailing educational shibboleths. </p>

<p>by Arthur Hu, who is a writer living in Kirkland, Washington.. </p>

<p>Arthur Hu in his article for the National Review said:</p>

<p>Here are excerpts from the article:</p>

<p>"Test scores and grades for blacks in integrated urban neighborhoods aren't any better than those in predominantly minority ghetto areas. Some affluent suburbs did no better than nearby urban areas, and even at the best suburban schools blacks on average lagged behind their white classmates. But a bigger secret is that even the poorest Asians tended to get better grades -- if not test scores -- than more affluent whites. Asians from poorer suburbs consistently outscored Euro-Americans in nearby more affluent suburbs. For all the talk about the superiority of schools in Japan or Korea, Asian-Americans are also nearly two years ahead in math, just as far ahead of their classmates as students in their ancestral lands are, even when they go to the same schools that fail other American minorities." </p>

<p>"California's 1994 CLAS (California Learning Assessment System) test introduced massive multiculturalism and had several questions for which more than one answer was counted as correct. Yet nobody noticed that elementary-school blacks and Hispanics did just as poorly in predominantly minority areas of Oakland, East Palo Alto, and Alum Rock as in legally integrated San Francisco. At Grade 10, only 10 to 15 per cent of black students got 3 or better in math whether they went to integrated San Francisco, the segregated communities of Contra Costa County, Oakland, or Silicon Valley's Santa Clara County. Asians continue to stampede into Cupertino, home of the founders of Apple Computers, because of its excellent schools. But US News (April 21, 1997) highlighted the poor performance of blacks there, and they lagged the state average on the CLAS." </p>

<p>"Meanwhile, the Asians of the Chinatown ghettos in San Francisco scored as well as children of affluent engineers in Santa Clara County. Asians in Santa Clara County scored as well as whites in posh San Ramon Valley or Cupertino. Asians in Cupertino scored as well as whites in Palo Alto, the best district in the Bay Area. Blacks in San Ramon Valley scored no better than state average for all races, while Asians there outscored every other race and community." </p>

<p>[The Seattle Times annually slams Seattle's math scores (just the 50th-percentile for Washington as a whole) compared to suburban Bellevue's 67th-percentile performance, and highlights the race gap as an urban problem. But broken down by race, whites score at about 67 in either city, but blacks score worse in Bellevue, at 34 compared to 40 for Seattle. Seattle has an "African-American Academy,'' but its test scores are virtually indistinguishable from the city average. Suburban inequality is much the same at nearby Issaquah (41) and Redmond (35), even though there are no minority ghettos in the suburbs, and there has never been any news coverage of racial differences in performance there.]</p>

<p>"Seattle is one of the few cities where Asians are so poor and white parents so highly educated that white students score better even in math. But Asians still have the highest grade-point average in the city. In the suburbs, Asian 8th-graders score 74 in 59th-percentile blue-collar Renton, hopping rungs over whites in 67th-percentile Bellevue. Asians in Bellevue score 82, equal to top-ranked Mercer Island's 83. Asians in Mercer Island score an astounding 90, not far below the average at the best Lakeside private school." </p>

<p>"In short, predominantly minority schools have low test scores because minorities have lower test scores regardless of the segregation factor, not the other way around. And American schools would match Asian schools if they were dominated by Asian students. Perhaps that chilling reality is the reason that every newspaper I have contacted has chosen to ignore these data." </p>

<p>"Economic and race-based interventions have never been shown to achieve the equality that was set as their justification in the first place. After all, the numbers that matter are not the percentage of blacks on the staff or in the classroom, but grade point average, reading and math test scores, and hours spent on homework and attendance. As Thomas Sowell and Lawrence Steinberg observe, if students of all races worked equally hard, their disparate rates of success and failure would plausibly lead to explanations based on, on the one hand, racism and poverty, or, on the other hand, innate superiority or inferiority. When they differ on every measure of effort, what else would you expect?"</p>

<p>Correction of previous post:</p>

<p>"The Groton School in Mass. was founded to send its students to Harvard, and in the early 1900s, all but 3 of the more than 450 applicants to Harvard College from Groton, were admitted (not denied admission)"</p>

<p>Mini said,</p>

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<p>The poorest Asian Americans in the poorest schools, from families with incomes of less than $20k/year, who have parents with a high school diploma or less, perform higher on the SAT I & IIs and the high stakes k-12 exams, achieve higher GPAs, take more difficult courses, and graduate at higher rates than the richest blacks, from family incomes with $100k/year in the most affluent schools, who have parents with college and graduate degrees. </p>

<p>In fact, the poorest Asian Americans living in the poorest neighborhoods with blacks and latinos, attending the same deficiet ghetto k-12 schools, outperform many whites in more affluent neighborhoods. One can verify this on the web by reviewing the NYC Public Schools' Report Card, which breaks down academic performance, graduation rates and test scores for each racial and ethnic group in every public k-12 school in NYC, including the ones in the black and latino ghettos where Asian Americans also live and attend the poorest schools in these very same ghettos with blacks and latinos as neighbors and classmates. Facts don't lie. That's the dark secret along with verifiable FACTS that the politically correct refuse to acknlowledge.</p>

<p>Just think and reflect for moment on these facts. Why do you think this is so??</p>

<p>Don't forget the value of having GC's at the top private schools who have ongoing relationships with the adcoms at the top colleges.....The colleges know these private schools inside and out.....not preapproval, exactly, but you know what I mean!</p>

<p>There are many good reasons beyond college placement for a family to decide to send a child to private school. Moral values, good citizenship and leadership are often stressed at these schools. One particular school's motto is "Non Sibi", which tranlates to "not for one self." In my opinion, this is a great message to give to a student, and a great way to approach life!</p>

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<p>"Non Sibi" is the motto for Andover or Phillips Academy, founded for "Youth from Every Quarter"</p>

<p>I agree with Sokkermom although this can also happen at public schools.....but what about the discipline? At my son's private school there is zero tolerance for misbehavior with consequences that work....</p>

<p>that is a good point. Public schools have to take everyone, unless the kids are really out of line, private schools can be very, very exclusive.
So they already have kids whose parents are not only paying big bucks for their child to be there, but they probably had to take an academic acheivement test as well.
Whereas my daughters public high school has to meet the needs of all folks whether they come to the school with a college reading level or a 4 th grade reading level.
They try to being them up to grade level, but that takes money and hard work, and both are already being spread around pretty thinly.</p>

<p>dke:</p>

<p>That's one great advantage that private schools have over public ones. Zero tolerance for misbehavior means that students can be expelled.
Try doing that in public schools and see the resulting uproar. Not just by parents of misbehaving students, necessarily, but everyone else. The cost of providing alternative education to suspended students is far higher than keeping them in school, and the cost of sending them to jail is even more so. </p>

<p>In our public school, "Non sibi" translates into diversity and tolerance.</p>

<p>I agree with you all about discipline. My 6 year old is currently dealing with a bully in her class....and I've had to go to the school twice in the last two weeks about it because it became physical last week and again yesterday (little girls can be so MEAN!!). </p>

<p>I don't expect it to be tolerated much more and bet this bully will be gone by end of December if it doesn't stop.</p>

<p>Good schools are not all about money, but about the culture and respect for learning from the students and their teachers</p>

<p>[The poorest Asian Americans in the poorest schools, from families with incomes of less than $20k/year, who have parents with a high school diploma or less, perform higher on the SAT I & IIs and the high stakes k-12 exams, achieve higher GPAs, take more difficult courses, and graduate at higher rates than the richest blacks, from family incomes with $100k/year in the most affluent schools, who have parents with college and graduate degrees. </p>

<p>In fact, the poorest Asian Americans living in the poorest neighborhoods with blacks and latinos, attending the same deficient ghetto k-12 schools, outperform many whites in more affluent neighborhoods. One can verify this on the web by reviewing the NYC Public Schools' Report Card, which breaks down academic performance, graduation rates and test scores for each racial and ethnic group in every public k-12 school in NYC, including the ones in the black and latino ghettos where Asian Americans also live and attend the poorest schools in these very same ghettos with blacks and latinos as neighbors and classmates. Facts don't lie. </p>

<p>That's the dark secret along with verifiable FACTS that the politically correct refuse to acknowledge.</p>

<p>Just think and reflect for moment on these facts. Why do you think this is so??]</p>

<p>I don't know. My daughters' private school had one of those lofty mottos that the staff was fond of quoting, mounting on walls, etc., based upon compassion, community, character, etc. The amount of meanness, gossip-mongering, social climbing, and general lack of respect, though subtle, was astounding and the administration who was beholden to the money of many of their parents was powerless to do much except cluck their tongues. The public school certainly has its problems but on the whole I find the kids more gentle with each other than the private school. And I have never heard a controversy about a suspension yet--which are usually for fighting, harassment, that kind of thing, and not rampant. Of course, our public school, even though budget-challenged, is still one of the top in the state so it can't be used as a general example of public schools.</p>

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<p>That's a generalization, which is not true. At Andover, there is no zero tolerance policy and a deliquent student who breaks the rules is given another chance. If it is drugs or alcohol, they are given counseling and support services first, which are invaluable for a wayward student, unavailable at most public schools.At another elite N.E. boarding school, which I am intimately familar with, there is a zero tolerance policy, but it is applied unequally to different students. I say this, because I am privy to the facts of a recent scandal at this school several years ago, where some students were expelled and some stayed, mainly because they had certain VIP connections.</p>

<p>Mini,</p>

<p>they must have heard you in NYC because on the news this morning they were talking about how the city spends $14 billion and there are bathrooms with no doors on the stalls and no toilet paper</p>

<p>So, wouldn't the "best" school high school (getting back to this thread) be the one which labored under all of these conditions and still sent the kids off to college?</p>